The price
What this election costs, in public numbers. An ad-tracking company counts the ads. The Federal Election Commission (the FEC, the government's election-money office) counts the money behind them.
Since you opened this page
Super PACs and dark money groups have spent an average of $50m per day over the past week.Brendan Glavin, research director, OpenSecrets, as reported Oct 28, 2026.[1]
Outside groups are super PACs and nonprofits that run their own political ads; the nonprofits don't have to say who funds them, which is why people call it dark money. $50,000,000 a day is $578.70 a second. This counter multiplies that by the seconds you've been here. It is arithmetic, not a feed of filings. For comparison, the whole cycle's ad bill, $11.21 billion over the 665 days from Jan 1, 2025 to Oct 27, 2026, averages $16.9 million a day, or $195 a second.[2]
The tag
Money spent on political ads, election by election, as counted by the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Includes ads booked but not yet aired.[2]
Spent on this election's ads as of Oct 27, 2026. More than any election before it, presidential ones included.[2]
Where AdImpact expects the total to land by Election Day.[2]
more than the last midterms, 2022, at $8.9 billion. Not adjusted for inflation.[2]
Table
| Cycle | Ads bought and reserved |
|---|
Per vote
The ad bill divided by the number of people who voted last time.
Same math for 2022: $8.9 billion ÷ 107.7 million = $83 a vote. In 2022, 45.1% of adults eligible to vote did.[3] If more people vote this time, the per-vote price falls. That is the only lever on this page that belongs to you.
Who raised what
Money raised, as reported to the FEC, January 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026. A PAC is a committee that pools money from a company's employees, a union's members or a cause's supporters. Money moves between these groups (PACs give to candidates, candidates pass money to parties), so the bars don't add up to one total.[4][5]
Table
| Who | Committees | Receipts |
|---|
Ads that outside groups ran on their own, without the candidates, totaled $643.4 million in reports filed through June 30. The fall, when most of that spending happens, is not in that number yet.[4]
Same point in past elections
What everyone running for Congress had raised 18 months into each election, per the FEC's summary. 2,742 candidates filed in 2026, against 2,585 at this point in 2022.[4]
Table
| Cycle | Candidates | Receipts at 18 months |
|---|
Where the candidates' money came from
The $2.80 billion raised by candidates for Congress through June 30, and who gave it.[6]
Table
| Source | Amount | Share |
|---|
"Everything else" is what's left after the three sources the FEC lists separately: mostly money moved in from shared fundraising accounts and party committees, loans, interest and refunds.[6]
And that's just the election
spent in 2025 on lobbying, which is paying people to press Congress and federal agencies. A record, per Bloomberg Government's annual analysis.[7]
cash candidates for Congress still had in the bank on June 30, four months before Election Day.[4]
cash PACs had in the bank the same day.[5]
The words
- FEC
- The Federal Election Commission, the government office every federal campaign reports its money to.
- PAC
- A political action committee: a pool of money from a company's employees, a union's members, or a cause's supporters, handed to candidates within legal limits.
- Super PAC
- A group that runs its own ads for or against candidates. It can take donations of any size but may not give to a candidate or plan with one.
- Dark money
- Political spending by nonprofits that don't have to name their donors.
- Outside groups
- Super PACs and those nonprofits together: everyone spending on the election who isn't a candidate or a party.
- Raised
- Everything a campaign or committee took in, which the FEC calls receipts.